


That Winchester Boy

by dark_roast



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Teenchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-30
Updated: 2010-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-12 13:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dark_roast/pseuds/dark_roast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Sam's schoolmates start turning up drowned. And worse. With John away on a hunt, seventeen year-old Dean is determined to solve the case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Winchester Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Bad language, brief gore and violence.  
> SPOILERS for 4x13, _After School Special_ , and takes place several months after that episode (when the boys are teenagers).  
> Written for [SPN_Summergen](http://community.livejournal.com/spn_summergen/profile)

Dean's ass was cold. And damp. He'd been sitting (and then crouching and then kneeling) behind one of the stupid ornamental hedges in Riverside Park, going on two hours, and there was absolutely no way to get comfortable; or not-damp, or not-poked by prickly branches.

The kelpie wasn't gonna show. Not in the park, anyway. Dean was convinced that somehow the kelpie had discovered the wrong-side-of-the-tracks rental where the Winchesters were parking it for the next few months. Where Sam was home all by himself, because Dean had told Sam not to follow him. Not under any circumstances. Or else. Sam hadn't even looked up from his Earth Science homework, just pointed out how Dean was wasting his time, and if Dean flunked another midterm -- blah, blah, blah, Dad, blah, blah, certain death.

Never mind that kelpies stuck close to the water, or that they stuck to the same kind of prey. This kelpie had drowned girls, so far. All three of them juniors or seniors, all three of them virgins. (Dean assumed -- based on what he knew about kelpies, and what he knew about girls.)

All the same, he couldn't shake the mental image of coming back to the house; finding a busted front door and trail of slime across the tatty brown carpet and no Sam, until some early morning jogger spotted him floating facedown in the river.

Dean scrambled up, rubbing his ass with both hands. He could barely see Stevie. In her hooded sweatshirt, she was a slumpy silhouette against the shimmering band of the river. Stevie saw him as soon as he stood up. She pulled off her headphones.

"What's wrong?" she whispered.

Dean waded out of the hedge, getting poked and pricked and scratched even though his jeans. At first, he'd worried over using Stevie as bait, but he didn't qualify as either female or virgin. Now he was just bored. And freezing to death.

"Nothing," he told her. "Let's bag it."

He walked over to the picnic table, pulling his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. Dad had bought them mobile phones just a month before. Welcome to the nineties, John Winchester. Only three years before the decade is over.

He dialed Sam's phone, ignoring the way Stevie was eyeing him curiously.

Sam picked up on the second ring. "Sam Winchester speaking."

"Everything cool?" Dean said.

"You're still failing English."

"Good _bye_ , Sam."

"You called me. Douchewad."

"Is that your brother?" Stevie said.

Dean hung up. "Yeah. Look, Stevie… don't take this the wrong way. But are you, you know… sure?"

Stevie nudged her glasses up the bridge of her nose, her eyes narrowing. "What do you mean, am I sure?"

"I mean are you _technically_ sure."

"You were the one who was sure, just by looking at me."

"You're in math club."

"AV club!"

"Whatever."

Stevie stuffed her fists into the sleeves of her sweatshirt, forming an improvised muff for her hands. "Maybe this thing – maybe it can smell _you_ , and your lack of purity."

Dean hadn't thought of that, but it didn't matter. He wouldn't have left Stevie out here all by herself. No way in hell. He frowned, touching the iron spike stuck through one belt loop of his jeans. Stabbing: one of two ways to kill a kelpie, the other being ripping off its horse-skin. He'd skinned a rabbit or two and skinning a live, pissed-off kelpie sounded like a Dad plan. Complicated and time-consuming.

"I don't even know what I'm doing here."

"Looking angsty and bait-like," he said. "And you're here because you've got a crush on me, and maybe you thought I was gonna bring you to the park and make out with you, or something."

"Really?" she demanded. "Really, Dean? Do you have, like, no subtlety whatsoever?"

"I'm subtle," Dean said. "Where it counts. You're here 'cause you know as well as I do that nothing human killed Karen and Marie and… the new girl."

"Jocelyn," Stevie said. "Jocelyn Thayer. She sat behind me in Civics class."

Dean and Sam had been the new kids at Hawthorne High, until Jocelyn Thayer had transferred in two weeks ago. All three girls had been found naked and drowned, tangled in river weeds and black horsehair. Classic kelpie M.O.

Then yesterday morning, the cops found a human liver in the fork of a tree. Maybe twenty feet from where Stevie was sitting right now. The police were still trying to figure out which partially eaten dead girl the liver belonged to. None of that made it into the paper, of course, but Hawthorne Hills was a small town. Folks talked.

"Yeah," Dean said. "Jocelyn. You know I'm right, Stevie."

Stevie bit her lip.

He held out his hand to her. "Come on. I'll walk you home. It's friggin' cold out here."

She eyed his hand, but she didn't take it.

Dean snorted. "Oh, who's being not-subtle now?"

"You _said_ a kelpie is supposed to appear as a tall, dark, handsome guy."

"Or a black horse."

"Either way, if you touch one, you're stuck, right?"

Dean nodded. "Then they drag you into the water." He leaned one hip on the edge of the picnic table. "That's how they get you. Look at the pretty pony." He leaned toward her, continuing in a sing-song voice. "Don't you just want to pet it?"

"No."

Stevie was smiling a little bit, though. She was even prettier when she wasn't wearing her "What's that stench?" grimace. But, she was still an in-your-face indie-chick. Not his type at all.

"Come on," Dean said again. "Lemme take you to The Highwayman. Buy you a coffee. Maybe some pie?"

Stevie actually looked like she was considering it. Then her eyes widened. A chill slid up Dean's back and he spun around, yanking the iron spike out of his jeans. The shadowy shape looming over him was his father. Of course Sam had tattled on him. Probably the second Dad had come home.

"Hey… Dean said. "Dad."

Something was wrong. Behind Dean, Stevie squeaked, "M-Mr. Winchester?"

His father had eyes like a goat. Ghostly-pale, with horizontal slashes of black. Dean raised the iron spike, and the kelpie slapped him across the face with a hand that was hard as a hoof. The park exploded in dazzling white, the picnic table slammed him in the small of the back and the spike jolted out of his hand. He hit the grass, and then the pain hit him.

"Run," he said through a mouthful of blood. "Stevie, run."

The kelpie grabbed her arm.

"Hey!" Stevie exclaimed.

She tried to pull away. She couldn't. The kelpie reached down and grabbed Dean by the shoulder, hauling him upright. It started toward the river, Dean and Stevie stumbling helplessly alongside. Dean fought to pull free, even though he knew better. The only way to get free was to cut a chunk out of his shoulder. The knife in his pocket wouldn't even saw through his leather jacket fast enough.

"Let me go!" Stevie exclaimed. "Get off me, you freak!"

She slapped at the kelpie with both hands, and then her hands stuck to it as well. She screamed. The kelpie dragged them down the short, muddy bank, and splashed into the river.

"I hate you," Stevie said. It took Dean a second to realize she was talking to him. "This is your fault!"

"If you'd opened your legs, you wouldn't even _be_ in this situation!" The instant that was out of his mouth, he wished it unsaid. Even in the chilly March air, he felt his face burning.

Stevie didn't get a chance to retort; the kelpie pushed her head into the water.

"Stevie!" Dean yelled. "No! Let go of her! Stevie!"

The kelpie grinned, with moonlight in its eyes, blank and shining white; and moonlight in its teeth. Way too many teeth, like sharp spades, like a row of crooked tombstones. It thrust him under. The freezing water shocked Dean's breath out of his mouth in a rush of bloody-pink bubbles. It could not be this cold near the end of March. Not even in Massachusetts.

The kelpie floated above him, distorted by the water, shimmering between human and horse, growing pricked ears and a rippling mane, as Dean fought helplessly, fingers sliding on the slick hair of its foreleg. His lungs began to burn. The urge to open his mouth and breathe got harder and harder to fight. The water darkened, swirling with black gnats. This was it. Dead at seventeen, before he could even drink. Legally. So many monsters unhunted, so many roads untraveled. And Sammy. Alone it the house, doing his Earth Science homework at the kitchen table, with a bowl of mac and cheese congealing beside him. Dean should have struck the muddy bottom by now, but the kelpie's arm stretched and stretched, forcing him deeper into airless, arctic darkness.

The pressure on his shoulder vanished. Dean flailed upward and broke the surface, gasping and puking up water. The kelpie thrashed frantically, contorting from human to horse, ripping itself apart and recombining in horrible ways. Dean scramble- paddled out of the way, sloshing through the shallow water to the bank. Small, strong hands helped him up the slippery grass. Sam. It was Sammy.

"Get it!" Sam insisted. "Grab it! Grab the coat!"

Dean shook his head, not understanding. Stevie struggled up the bank beside them, coughing and shivering. Thank God.

Sam pointed frantically at the water. "Dean, get the coat!"

When Dean turned his head, he saw what Sam was talking about. The kelpie was trying to pull the iron spike out of its lower back. It couldn't. Iron burned its skin, and when it changed its hands into hooves, it had no fingers to hold the blade. It was still wearing John Winchester's denim jacket. Sam had stabbed the kelpie right through the fabric.

Dean jumped up, fell over, got up again, and waded back into the river toward the kelpie. He'd have to be fast. Really fast. He pulled the spike out of the kelpie's back. As the monster dove forward, transforming into a glossy black horse, Dean grabbed the jacket by the collar and stripped it off. He staggered and nearly went down again, under the sudden weight of a wet horse-skin.

He dragged the skin toward the river bank, getting a glimpse of the kelpie as it plunged under the water, skinned raw, a ring of blood blooming in its wake. Sam and Stevie helped Dean haul the kelpie's skin up onto the bank, and on the grass.

"Stevie?" Dean said. "You okay?"

She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself. She'd lost her glasses, but that didn't make her look hotter. It made her look vulnerable and scared. "Is that… that thing dead?"

Dean shook his head. "We gotta burn its skin. Me and Sam, I mean."

"But, it's gone for now," Stevie said.

"For a long time. I promise."

"Good." Stevie dropped her hold on the kelpie skin."You're a dick, Dean Winchester."

She headed off across the park, almost running, and disappeared into the dark trees.

"Stevie! Hey!"

"Smooth," Sam said.

"Shut up." Dean hesitated, torn. Going after Stevie meant leaving Sam alone.

"Go ahead," Sam said. "I can --"

"Uh-uh, no way." Dean took a firmer hold on the horse skin. "Gimme a hand. Quick."

They heaved the heavy, slippery skin over the ornamental hedge. As hiding places went, this one sucked. Hopefully, darkness would hide the rumpled heap of skin from anybody taking a late-night stroll.

"We're coming right back," Sam pointed out.

He was right. They still had a couple hours of work to do. But, first things first. They'd make sure Stevie got home safe. And, Dean figured, by the time he and Sam walked Stevie all the way to her house… she might not even completely hate him anymore.  


***


End file.
